Forest Park police responded to 7-Eleven, 205 Harlem Ave., on Sept. 6 just after 4 a.m. after receiving a report that the clerk had just been robbed at gunpoint.
According to the victim, the offender entered the store and began shopping for miscellaneous items before approaching the counter, pointing a black handgun and threatening to shoot if the clerk didn’t give him all the money in the store.
The offender then ordered the clerk to lie on the ground while he emptied the cash registers and stole scratch-off lottery tickets and packs of cigarettes.
Security camera footage obtained from outside the business reportedly showed the offender arrived in a silver sedan, which parked at one of the gas pumps outside the store. The offender waited for the lot to clear before exiting the vehicle and going inside.
After robbing the store, the offender returned to the car, which was last seen headed southbound on Harlem Avenue.
A short time later police located a car matching the description of the one from the 7-Eleven robbery traveling southbound on Harlem Avenue at Jackson Boulevard. Believing the vehicle may have been involved, police attempted to stop the car, which then headed west on I-290.
But the silver sedan did not stop and its driver, later identified as Anthony Q. Hickey, 30, of Riverside, allegedly led police on a high speed chase at speeds in excess of 80 mph through suburbs including Maywood, Hillside, Oak Brook and finally Hinsdale, where the sedan crashed at the end of a street into a bush in the front lawn of a home in the 100 block of Lane Road.
Police arrested Hickey and reported recovering a loaded 9 mm magazine in a pants pocket. They also reported recovering an ecstasy pill and a bundle of counterfeit cash. Inside the vehicle, they reported finding a loaded Taurus 9 mm handgun, a shoe box containing sheets of counterfeit $20 and $100 bills and four cellphones.
According to police, it turned out that Hickey was not involved in the 7-Eleven robbery. He was charged with felony aggravated fleeing and eluding, felony unlawful use of a weapon by a felon, possession of a controlled substance and multiple traffic offenses.
No one hurt by shots fired
No one appears to have been hurt and no property damaged, according to Forest Park police, during an incident on Sept. 3 at about 9:05 p.m. where someone fired three rifle rounds in the 7500 block of Lexington Street.
Several people called 911 to report the gunshots, which were fired close to the vicinity of Lexington Street and Ferdinand Avenue, one caller told police. After the gunshots, the caller said they heard screeching tires.
Another witness said that shortly after hearing the shots, she observed a white utility van with blue paint on the rear left side driving erratically westbound on Lexington before it blew through a stop sign at Lathrop Avenue at a high rate of speed.
Police reported recovering three Federal 300 rifle shell casings in the 7500 block of Lexington Street, two on the street and one on the north parkway.
Vehicle break-ins
A resident of the 7700 block of Van Buren Street called police on Sept. 4 to report that between 12:15 and 1 a.m. on that date someone entered his unlocked vehicle, which was parked in the lot of an apartment, and removed a driver’s license, firearm owner’s ID card and a debit card from the interior.
Police responded to the 1100 block of Elgin Avenue on the morning of Sept. 6 after a resident called to report a car break-in that had just occurred. The caller stated he heard a car alarm go off at about 7 a.m. behind his house. When he went to see what was going on he reported seeing a man rummaging through a vehicle parked on the rear concrete pad of a property across the alley.
The person fled when he noticed the witness calling police. The owner of the vehicle reported that while the car had been ransacked, nothing was missing.
A resident who lives in the 7200 block of Roosevelt Road went to police on the morning of Sept. 7 to report that during the overnight hours someone entered his vehicle and removed his wallet containing his driver’s license, Social Security card and two debit cards from the center console.
A resident of the 800 block of Ferdinand Avenue called police on the morning of Sept. 7 to report that an unknown man rang his doorbell just before 7 a.m. and handed him a wallet that he’d found along Roosevelt Road.
The resident then went to his vehicle, where he’d left the wallet, and saw that it had been ransacked. The returned wallet was also missing several credit cards. While police were processing the vehicle for evidence, another person turned in a cellphone that belonged to the resident, which was found near Harrison and Ferdinand.
These items were obtained from police reports filed by the Forest Park Police Department, Sept. 3-9, and represent a portion of the incidents to which police responded. Unless otherwise indicated, anybody named in these reports has only been charged with a crime. These cases have not been adjudicated.
Compiled by Bob Uphues
